What every economist, and for that matter every writer on any
subject, needs to realize is that unless you are a powerful
person and people are looking for clues about what you’ll do
next, nobody has to read what you write — and lecturing
them about what they’re missing doesn’t help. You have to provide
the hook, the pitch, whatever you want to call it, that pulls
them in. It’s part of the job.

It's not enough to just be smart, or right, or even interesting.
Unless you're already famous, getting people to read your writing
involves salesmanship.

This salesmanship obviously can take all kinds of forms: clear
headlines, timeliness, social promotion (tweeting, etc.),
powerful images to accompany the writing, and so forth.

Human attention span is a finite resource, and every day you have
to stake your claim to some slice of that resource if you want
your writing to be read (if you're just writing for yourself,
then obviously none of this applies).

Krugman, funnily enough, counts as someone who people would feel
compelled to read no matter what (you know, the Nobel Prize) yet
he's tremendous at writing for clarity, in a timely manner, and
at a regular enough clip so people are trained to come back.